The present disclosure relates generally to lottery systems, and more particularly to lottery systems, methods and devices for draw-based games.
Lottery games that are determined by pre-printed indicia and random drawings are known. For example, instant lottery tickets typically provide a scratch-off coating whereby a user can scratch off the coating to determine if the underlying indicia result in any winnings. When instant tickets are made available for sale, they are generally provided to a retailer in packs, and an activation code or number can be read by, or entered through, a terminal to activate the pack of tickets for sale and play. Once the pack is activated, the individual tickets in the pack can be sold without requiring any further activation for the tickets to be played and redeemed. When a ticket purchaser seeks to redeem a purchased instant ticket, a validation code, such as a void-if-removed number (“VIRN”), can be scanned at a retailer POS terminal or other terminal to confirm that the ticket is a winner, and the scanned code is communicated to a lottery host, which checks the code against a database of stored ticket information and returns a message to the retailer terminal that the code is valid to allow the retailer to redeem the ticket for its associated winnings.
Online or draw-based games, including raffle games, allow a user to select various indicia such as numbers, or have the numbers randomly selected for the user, and then a random drawing determines if the user's indicia match enough of the randomly drawn indicia for the user to win. With draw-based games, special drawing game devices or terminals separate from standard retailer point-of-sale (POS) terminals are generally employed to process wagers and print tickets and/or receipts with the player's requested or randomly selected indicia. These special devices may be positioned away from traditional checkout lines and POS terminals, such that players who may be shopping for other items must make a second stop at the special device to make a wager for a draw-based game. Regardless, the special terminal communicates the wager and associated details to a host as part of registering the wager. The game's integrity is maintained, at least in part, by ensuring that only purchased tickets with registered wagers are capable of winning when the random drawing occurs.
Pre-printed draw-based lottery tickets are not common, but as with traditional draw-based lottery tickets, the operator of the lottery must know the indicia or set of indicia tied to tickets that were actually purchased in order to register those tickets as eligible to win. If not all of the pre-printed tickets have been sold, then any unsold tickets must not be included in determining winners in order to maintain the integrity of the wagering game. While a pack of pre-printed draw-based lottery tickets can be activated for sale, such activation cannot be treated as an instant ticket pack activation would be, where each individual ticket is thereafter redeemable by scanning a validation code, since unscrupulous individuals may seek out unpurchased, but winning, draw-based tickets after a drawing has occurred. Accordingly, draw-based lottery tickets with pre-printed indicia must be purchased, and the purchase recorded before the drawing, in order for the ticket to be activated for play and later redemption.
While a code can be provided on a pre-printed draw-based ticket for scanning in order to activate and/or register the ticket for play, problems arise if the activation for play code is not scanned or otherwise entered and communicated to the host. For example, if a purchaser buys a pre-printed draw-based ticket and it is somehow not scanned, it may include winning indicia but not be redeemable, since it would be treated by the system as an unsold ticket. Post-purchase ticket scanning can be missed for many reasons, such as through poor retailer clerk training or by mistake, such as in instances where the player is purchasing several consecutive tickets in a pack, and one or more of the tickets is mistakenly missed during scanning to activate the tickets for play. There is thus a technical challenge with pre-printed draw-based lottery tickets to ensure that all purchased tickets are activated for play, even when the ticket code has not been scanned or otherwise communicated to the host. This challenge is heightened by the desire to reduce the equipment footprint of lottery machines in retailer sites such that all required operations can be fulfilled using retailer POS terminals.